The Futility Infielder

Stay The Hell Away From Our Hitter

Sunday's New York Times Sports section carried a piece on the Yankees prized rookie first baseman/DH Nick Johnson. Johnson is the latest Yankee prospect to have the "can't miss" label hung around his neck, which, given the organization's recent track record of home-grown ballplayers, bodes fairly well--Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Bernie Williams, and Alfonso Soriano are all recent graduates of the same system. What makes the 23-year old Johnson such a prized prospect isn't merely his raw talent, it's his precocious plate discipline. Here are Johnson's On-Base Percentages in each of his minor-league seasons, along with his age and the league level (his complete record is here):

2001  23  AAA  .407

2000  22  ---  ---

1999  21   AA  .525

1998  20    A  .466

1997  19    A  .398

1996  18    R  .422

Johnson missed the 2000 season with a mysterious wrist injury and had a bit of trouble regaining his form last season, but he joined the big club when Tino Martinez tweaked a hamstring and stayed up during September. He didn't embarrass himself in his cup of coffee, but he didn't distinguish himself too much either, hitting .194/.308/.313 in 67 AB.

Still, with his patience and even moderate power, he probably should have made the playofff roster in place of one of the Yanks' many futilitymen. Recall Luis Sojo's at-bat against Randy Johnson in Game 2 of the World Series, in which the overmatched Michelin Man in Pinstripes grounded into an inning-ending double-play, killing the closest thing to a rally the Yanks ever mounted against the Big Unit. While a lefty-lefty matchup wouldn't have been ideal in this situation, a hitter with Johnson's patience might have stood a better chance. But alas...

The Times article focuses on Johnson's relationship to Larry Bowa, former Phillies shortstop and current manager, about whom I rarely have a kind word to say. Bowa is Johnson's uncle, and both players were taught the game by Larry's father, the late Paul Bowa, a minor-league infielder in the Cardinals chain during the late 1930s and early '40s, and later a minor-league manager.

Larry Bowa is one of those wonderful My Way or the Highway types whose bluster and insistence upon ripping his own players in the press starts to grate on the casual baseball fan after the first three game losing streak. Bowa managed to guide the Phils to a third-place finish last season, five games above .500 despite the kind of histrionics more appropriate in a last-place ballclub--most notably, alienating Scott Rolen, the Phils' star third baseman. Rolen is Derek Jeter without the marketing or the championship-caliber team around him, and he'll be richly rewarded when he signs a long-term contract ABP (Anywhere But Philly) following the season. But I digress...

Towards the end of the Times article, writer Tyler Kepner states that Johnson and his uncle talk two to three times a week, in which Bowa dispenses hitting advice to his nephew. "Walking frequently has served Johnson well in the minors; he led his league in on-base percentage four times in the last six years," says the article. "But Bowa has warned Johnson that major league pitchers can make hitters look foolish if they take too many strikes, and Johnson seems to be listening."

WHOA! The idea that anyone--least of all Bowa, an impatient slap hitter and an even more impatient and slappier(?) manager--should be tinkering with this kid's approach at the plate caused me to involuntarily flush my sinuses with hot black coffee first thing in the morning--a stiff awakening I heartily recommend against. Bowa was a slick defensive shortstop, good enough to win a couple of Gold Gloves, but he was a lousy hitter (.260 AVG/.300 OBP/.320 SLG). He took a walk about once every five games and had absolutely zero power (15 HR in over 8900 plate appearances). His offensive philosophy--why be patient at the plate when you can ground out on any old pitch--reflects the kind of baseball wisdom which keeps a speedster like Doug Glanville (.285 OBP) in the leadoff spot during a pennant race, the kind of thinking that's become outmoded since Bowa's playing days ended 17 years ago. Though apparently some teams didn't get the memo.

Before anybody starts quibbling that Bowa's offensive performance (the one with the bat, not the one with the mouth) took place in a much different context than today, I'd just like to point out that thanks to the aid of a new feature on baseball-reference.com which computes league averages for a player's career, we can see that Bowa's performance relative to the leagues he played in was still fairly dismal:

          AVG   OBP   SLG  OPS+

Bowa    .260  .300  .320   71

League  .276  .335  .393

OPS+ is, essentially, a park-adjusted ratio of the player's OPS to the league OPS--in this case, not a good one. Here is another light-hitting middle-infielder of some renown, this one still active (well, sort of):

          AVG   OBP   SLG  OPS+

XXXX    .261  .298  .353   71

League  .269  .340  .421

Our mystery guest has a bit more power than Bowa, but essentially the same performance rates. His identity? None other than Luis Sojo. Not to pick on Looie at all (which I'm now doing for the second time in one piece), but if I saw him standing around the batting cage with Nick Johnson, I would pray that the two of them were talking about the weather, cooking, snake-charming, or sky-diving... anything but hitting.

Anyway, what's really relevant isn't what Sojo can hit, or how Bowa can run the Phils into the ground, it's what Johnson will do. To that end, I took a look at a few projections:

• ProtospectWatch, a new website devoted to player projections, has him at .253 AVG/.355 OBP/.411 SLG with 14 HRs in 400 ABs, which seems low but not out of the question if the kid has trouble adjusting to major-league pitching. And for whatever its worth, the site also ranks him 5th on their Top 301 Prospects List.

•ESPN's John Sickels puts Johnson in the Rookie of the Year race, noting, "He seems a safe bet to hit .275-.285, with an on-base percentage near .400 and 15-20 home runs. If Johnson shows normal development, he'll rank among the best first basemen in the league within three years."

• The 2002 Baseball Prospectus projects Johnson at .275 AVG/.398 OBP/.467 SLG with 18 HRs in about 400 ABs, and predicts, "He'll likely end up as a cross between John Olerud and Barry Bonds," which I take to mean having Olerud's skill set as a high-average, medium-power, good-fielding first baseman, but with Bonds-type discipline at the plate, rather than having Barry's power and speed. "I think most Yankee fans can live with that, even if it takes him a few years to get there," writes the Prospectus, and this Yanks fan would agree.

Just so long as that route doesn't take him through the Larry Bowa School of Hitting.